Geoffrey Gertz is a post-doctoral fellow in the Global Economy and Development program. His research focuses on the political economy of foreign investment.
The pace of economic globalization may slow, but this isn’t necessarily cause for great concern; the “bicycle theory” that globalization must continually be marching forward lest it come to a crashing halt is a cute metaphor, but there is little empirical evidence to suggest it’s true
It is still in Japan’s strategic interest to keep alluding to the need to keep the ideas behind the TPP alive.
There is quite clearly something specific about Chinese FDI that is viewed as much more of a threat than other countries. Everyone kind of acknowledges that in the background, but is not willing to have a clear policy that says yes, this is aimed specifically at China.
On the one hand the U.S. wants to be defending U.S. companies overseas and they are going to see this as vindictive, particularly in going after Apple’s profits retroactively. But in the bigger picture the U.S. is taking moves to fight inversions and improve the global system.
